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My partner doesn't want their partners to date each other. I agreed to this but have caught feelings for my meta. What should I do?
AdviceWhat would be the point of telling June? You have made an agreement with April about not getting romantically involved with her partners. If you want to renegotiate that agreement you need to do that with April first, anything else would be a breach of trust. And dumping your feelings in June's lap when you're either 1) not intending to pursue anything with her anyway or 2) you're open to initiating a relationship that would be deeply upsetting and disrespectful toward April is just rude.
100%, it's so weird that OP would want to tell June first?? Like are they okay?? That would be betraying April deeply when she's already traumatised by the previous experience - and with OPs reasoning like that, I'm not surprised that April was so effected. Urgh.
This is a really good point, thank you. I hadn't realized the illogic of it, as 1) is definitely true and 2) is unimaginably off the table, that'd be awful. God, I feel like a dog chasing a car.
Who hasn't lost their mind a bit in the face of strong emotion! It's commendable that you decided to try to get some perspective before taking any action.
Thank you for your compassion stranger, this has helped a lot.
You made an agreement, now you want to change it, but your intention is to talk to June first and then let April know you are going back on your agreement? How do you think that’s going to go over with April, who’s already traumatised by your previous triad disaster?
Exactly my thought, this would be such a cruel thing to do to April, a huge overstep and a break of trust.
Naturally, I agreed to this, and I have respected April's wishes
Apparently not, you're looking for every excuse to break the agreement.
But now it seems the more time I spend with June, the more I also catch romantic feelings for June.
Stop spending time with June untill the crush runs its course.
It's on my mind so much that I can't ignore the feelings.
Yes, you can. You are choosing not to. If you're gonna make a selfish choice at least have the mettle to own that decision. It's not that you can't ignore the feelings, it's that you don't want to ignore the feelings.
I want to tell them -- June first, and then April
So you want to break the agreement you have with April first.... Why? Coz if June isn't interested you'd try to keep it from April or something? And what do you expect to happen? Coz I don't have a messy list, but I will not participate in a triad. That's a personal boundary for me.
So if my partners came up to me telling me they wanted to date my other partnes--that would be fine-but one of them would not be dating me any longer if not both.. Because I will not be in a triad, whatever anyone else wants. If it's simillar for April, I'm assuming that she'll also end it if you choose to pursue June or told her you want to,especially since she isn't open to discussing the possibility of a triad (neither am I) . So telling June first seems calculated and like you're hedging your bets.
I'll get over it if it's unrequited --
You should be getting over it without telling anyone about it. Just let it run it's course. But you don't want to, so you'll selfishly implode a whole lot of things.
But now it seems the more time I spend with June, the more I also catch romantic feelings for June.
Then don’t spend time with June. It’s pretty simple. Spend time with other people instead and fall in love with one (or some) of them. There are 8B+ people on our crowded planet who are not dating your partner.
Alternatively, break up with April so that you are free to date June.
But my feelings are too strong to ignore.
No they aren't, you just don't want to.
This is a cheater's reasoning, fyi.
Yeah it’s really rich to hang out with a crush for four months and then say feelings are too strong to resist. Feelings weren’t that strong in the beginning and you could’ve resisted then, you just chose not to.
Respect your partners wishes and take a few steps back. She asked, you agreed, so follow through.
I have an aversion to drama and messiness so that’s my advice.
I think to a certain extent it’s normal to feel something for your meta but you need to step back, take some time and check your feelings. Are these definitely romantic or is it the level of compersion you are experiencing. Sometimes we don’t know until the rose tinted specs come off a little way down the line. Give your partner and meta time to settle into their relationship.
Ya, try dating someone else first at least
Thank you for your advice. I will say that I think I've successfully disentangled the feelings from the compersion -- June and I hang out one-on-one a decent amount, and I still feel this way when April isn't around or being talked about.
I feel like you are trying to justify why you should explore this. You made an agreement with your partner and that takes precedence. Is this feeling worth blowing up your current relationship for?
Your partner asked to date others separately for a reason and you aren’t seeing that or understanding. You need to take a step back and ask yourself why.
You're right, it's definitely not worth blowing up my relationship for!
Thank you, I think I do need to do exactly that.
You're breaking the spirit if not the letter of your agreement. And you know it. Step back from June and let the crush go away. Honor your agreements. Or at the least talk to April first so she can make her decisions based on informed consent.
In my personal experience some crushes do not go away, even if I begin rarely spending time with that person. It just resurfaces as soon as I speak to them for like 30 mins.
OP might need to consider going completely NC with them but idk how practical that wld be? Suffering in silence also works if you only have to see them rarely. So they shouldn’t co-habit.
This is a very sober insight, thank you.
Why are you intentionally spending all this one on one time with someone you have feelings for?
You’re worried it “might feel like a betrayal to April.” Might? Might??? BSFFRN.
Of course she would feel betrayed bc doing that is an actual betrayal. Jesus tits. Get a whole grip. Your selfishness is breathtaking.
[my messy list blurb]
Messy lists are different from vetos. One common kind of messy list is about not getting sucked into drama. “I do not date people who are also dating people they cheated with, cheaters, abusers, violent criminals, substance abusers or my ex from hell.”
Another kind goes something like “I do not date people who are also dating my parents, siblings, children, bosses, coworkers, clients, doctors, lawyers, therapists, roommates, partners or any of my four best friends.” Basically, I do not date anyone whose relationships will fuck up important relationships of mine when they go south.
This is different from a veto. It’s not about a particular person, it’s categories identified in advance. It’s about who you date, not who other people are allowed to date.
Messy lists are not often made explicit because we assume our partners share our values. We don’t feel like we need to tell our partners we will leave them if they enter a triad with our parents or if they start dating someone with convictions for stalking. We only notice we have a messy list when a current partner starts fishing in our messy pool and then it feels like a veto.
Once you’ve had a proper messy list conversation you don’t get to add new categories every time someone has a new relationship or hookup that someone feels some kind of way about. You figure out a way to deal and you make your own decisions.
“Babe, we never had a messy list conversation but it looks like it’s time. It’s not cool for people to interfere with eachother’s friends and resources. Let’s make some lists of people who are off-limits.”
“Babe, I don’t date people who are dating my friends. If you date my friend I won’t be dating you any more.”
Thank you for this
Applause for the, “when they go south” not “if”. How many of us are batting a 100% success rate with our partners?
Ezzackly!
If you spend quality, one on one time with someone you have a lot of chemistry with—yeah you’re gonna want to date them. That is true for me and even people who I dislike who I have chemistry with.
You agreed that you wouldn’t date your partner’s partners though. Soooo stop spending quality time with this meta who you have a crush on.
Also idk how to ask this: what was the point of agreeing to this only to basically question the agreement the moment you were presented with these circumstances? Like you agreed not to date metas. And you’re spending quality time with this meta you have a crush on. Like. What was the point of you saying yes to that agreement? I don’t mean it to be snarky. I guess I’m just wondering if you should examine how you make agreements with people. You don’t want to keep agreeing to stuff only to change your mind in a matter of months the literal first time the opportunity presents itself.
I mean you’re allowed to change your mind. But you know, people can’t rely on your word if you just agree to stuff and do like absolutely nothing to maintain those agreements. At some point, folks are gonna be asking themselves if they can trust you to do what you say.
The three of you have something really really good right now. April made this agreement with you because a former situation got really really messy. You're asking us if it's okay to go behind her back and do something really really messy. It isn't.
April will feel betrayed. June likely won't want to engage because it feels like betraying April. If you and June do begin a relationship and April is sticking to her boundaries, she will leave you both. If she doesn't, then she's allowing you to walk on her boundaries. Do you want to be the partner that breaks down your partner's boundaries and hurts them consistently? There's no outcome here where you do this and everyone is happy. You came to that agreement for a reason.
I am glad you're getting universal advice, because I was in April's shoes when my partner (Ash) unexpectedly gushed to me about their crush on my other partner (Birch). It was destabilizing for me, to say the least.
We had all been getting along great, naturally building family-like companionship. Suddenly knowing Ash was ready and willing to jeopardize not only their friendship with Birch, but my relationship with both Birch and themselves, made me feel used, manipulated, and like my feelings didn't matter an ounce.
The entire thing demolished my trust in Ash. I could see clearly that they did not have my best interests in mind, and were not invested in protecting my heart. The only way forward was for me to build an immovable wall around that boundary and disentangle from Ash romantically.
Show April you value them by working through this crush on your own. Don't strap them into the emotional rollercoaster your brain chemistry is flirting with. Keep this passing crush (and it will pass) private and find other people to spend quality one on one time with. Put your energy there.
This is some incredibly valuable perspective and advice, thank you. I think I will do exactly that. Thank you internet stranger for perhaps helping save my budding poly family.
Thank you for all for your advice. It's comforting in a way that the response has been so unanimous. It's clear that I'm not thinking straight about this and need to take a step back. I see now how expressing my feelings to June would be a break of trust with my agreement with April. I value my relationship with April so highly, I really do not want to betray that. It seems that taking steps to allow the crush to fade is the best course of action, or else really talk it through with April first if my feelings stick.
Hello, thanks so much for your submission! I noticed you used letters in place of names for the people in your post - this tends to get really confusing and hard to read (especially when there's multiple letters to keep track of!) Could you please edit your post to using fake names? If you need ideas instead of A, B, C for some gender neutral names you might use Aspen, Birch, and Cedar. Or Ashe, Blair, and Coriander. But you can also use names like Bacon, Eggs, and Grits. Appple, Banana, and Oranges. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. If you need a name generator you can find one here. The limits are endless. Thanks!
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Hi u/Poly-Questioner93939 thanks so much for your submission, don't mind me, I'm just gonna keep a copy what was said in your post. Unfortunately posts sometimes get deleted - which is okay, it's not against the rules to delete your post!! - but it makes it really hard for the human mods around here to moderate the comments when there's no context. Plus, many times our members put in a lot of emotional and mental labor to answer the questions and offer advice, so it's helpful to keep the source information around so future community members can benefit as well.
Here's the original text of the post:
Wow I've been pondering over this quite some time, figured I'd reach out to some random internet stranger perspectives.
My (27 F, call me May) nesting partner (28 F, call her April) and I are poly and have been together four years. About 4 months ago she started dating someone new (27 F, call her June) and, let me tell you, we have amazing chemistry as a V. April and June are deeply in love, and I get a lot of compersion from it. I love hanging out with June, and the three of us have already talked about potentially cohabitating and having long-term plans together.
Before April started dating June, April expressed to me that she didn't want me to date any of her new partners. This is mostly because last year we got caught in a messy triad that we didn't approach well ("dating as a couple," whoops) that ended up hurting both of us, and April really wants to avoid that happening again. She gets almost trauma-triggered worked-up thinking about the possibility of it happening again, it's sort of hard to talk to her about it actually.
Naturally, I agreed to this, and I have respected April's wishes. June and I have both been very good about restraining our urges to flirt with each other (it's kind of funny sometimes actually). But now it seems the more time I spend with June, the more I also catch romantic feelings for June. It's on my mind so much that I can't ignore the feelings. I don't know if June feels the same way about me.
I really don't want to mess up our lovely V -- I can genuinely envision a really happy life together with me and June as just platonic queer family with April as our hinge. But my feelings are too strong to ignore. I want to tell them -- June first, and then April. It's fine either way how June she feels, I'll get over it if it's unrequited -- but I'm worried about ruining the dynamic in our V, and I'm worried about the act of me expressing my feelings might feel like a betrayal to April.
What are your thoughts?
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I've been the person who's had the agreement broken with twice at this point. It is traumatising. I've had two partners do this to me out of their own selfishness and impulsiveness.
One who we ended on terrible terms and this person is no longer in my life. She took no responsibility for her actions and blamed me for having those boundaries.
One who I broke up with, but we've got back to together after he expressed his regret for his actions, and put in the work to learn, grow, rebuild trust, and own up to his fuck up.
I think it's a newbie mistake. I think newbies get excited with the "just because you can, doesn't mean you should". I was both of these individuals first poly relationship while I've been in some form of non-monogamy throughout my adult life.
This post has been tagged as a request for advice. As a reminder, please only give advice on the topic requested, if you've got strong feelings about a particular issue mentioned and feel that you must be able to express yourself about it, or you and another commenter feel compelled to debate certain aspects of the post, please feel free to create a new post for that topic so as to not derail from the advice that the OP is seeking.
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